Pale Islands
by zmeigulyas
Summary: Kisame remembers someone from his past.
1. Chapter 1

_Requisite Disclaimer: I am not affliiated with Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha Publishing, Viz Media or any other offical holders to the rights of Naruto. I own none of the characters and will make no money off of this story. _

_On a side note I am editing this myself so if you see any grammatical or naming errors please feel free to point them out politlely and I will be happy to fix them._

_Enjoy._

These days Kisame often finds himself with little to do but think. Unsurprisingly, existing inside a giant sword leaves one with some considerable free time and very little to fill it with. This does not make the shark-nin happy. He's made a point of occupying the spare moments of his life since his defection with ceaseless work or training.

Two of the best things about his relationship with Itachi, the Uchiha genius never asked him a single question about his life before joining Akatsuki and had an equally frenetic work-ethic. Sometimes Kisame wondered what unnamed demons drove Itachi as well but refused to ask. After all, that would have made his own fair conversational game, or gotten him transported to a literal world of pain.

Itachi was going to have plenty of time with his secrets now. Kisame will not even allow himself to consider how bad Sasuke's got to have it on the tormented memories front, what with the combination of his own _and_ his brothers.

But that's not true.

Kisame finds himself thinking of Sasuke fairly often. He uses the kid as a yard stick of sorts whenever he's feeling particularly down. He tells himself that his damage isn't half that bad.

Some days he even believes it.

This is the first time in more than nine years that he's actually let the disjointed flashes of a remembered scent or color that managed to slip through his iron clad defenses form into coherent images.

She had ashy brown hair, cut short for necessity's sake but with an endearing tendency of falling over her left eye, or maybe it was the right one; the details were blurred by the passage of too much time. He could no longer recall the color of her eyes. They changed depending on his mood from pleasant blue to soothing grey to a passionate amber-brown. The one thing he could reconstruct with absolute clarity was the color and texture of her skin.

It had been a creamy, opaque ivory that warmed to gold easily on the rare occasions she got some sun. It had also been the softest thing he had ever touched. Oh sure, it sounded cliché, every lover in every bad romance ever written described his beloved's skin like that; but Kisame suspected it was at least something like true.

It was, he thought, a symptom of being in love.

In all likelihood her skin had not been all that soft when compared to say, a fine lady's who hardly ever did anything so rough as garden, let alone train until she dropped in a heap of sweat and blood. Nevertheless, to Kisame, his woman's skin had been unbelievably, terrifyingly soft. Especially in comparison to his rough hide. He always wondered how something so delicate feeling stood up to such punishment. He was certain that if he rubbed it too hard it would split and bleed, though it never did.

He also remembered her voice, or at least he thought he did. He certainly remembered the effect it had on him. She had been talking to another student, a girl as he had been passing on the street the first time he heard it. He had checked his long stride behind the pair. If he had ever known what the conversation had been about he had long, long since forgotten but her voice stayed with him. Both girls' voices did actually. Her pretty, raven haired companion had had a high, fluting way of speaking that he had heard many other women adopt in an attempt to sound 'cute.' He found it grating. _Her_ voice though had been soft with a hint of a whispery huskiness even then when she couldn't have been more than eight or nine. It undercut her friend's shrill responses and wrapped around something inside of him.

He had followed them in silence all the way to the academy. The black haired one had started violently and hissed something venomous about not sneaking up on people but _She_ had looked up at him with an expression both bemused and conspiratorial. She had been aware of his presence the entire time her look said; she had just decided not to say anything to her friend. Such subterfuge was a good sign in a tyro ninja he remembered thinking. He had been surprised to find himself hoping that she made it through her graduation.

She had, a year after he did. He had watched her viciously dispatch her pretty, vivacious friend and step over the other girl's severed head with its blood-matted black hair and shocked eyes without a second's hesitation. She had been ten. The next year her younger, second cousin had murdered the class behind hers.

It had taken over a year for the Mizukage to act in the face of Zabuza's frankly predictable brutality. The decision had come down in the spring, just weeks before the class that should have been Zabuza's would have graduated. There would be no more murderous battles between students. The entire class was passed. Kisame felt like he had been betrayed and was certain the village was doomed. He had stalked off to find a deserted inlet somewhere to vent his rage on rocks. It seemed that a fair few other recent graduates had had similar thoughts because he had been forced to walk much farther from the village than was his habit before he found a free bit of sand.

At least he had thought it free. He couldn't recall how long he had spent reducing boulders to fine gravel. He did remember being brought up short by a voice. He had reacted exactly as ninja should, viciously and without thinking, before he realized that it was that same whispery voice that had begun to haunt his subconscious. He had felt a sort of clenching in his gut as he turned to watch his water sharks tear her apart. She had dispelled them elegantly; dropping below one while blocking the other with an armored forearm and then pirouetting neatly to tear the other apart with a blast of chakra directed air. He was impressed and told her as much as she straightened and turned toward him.

She had smiled that half smile she used whenever she was trying to hide her emotions. He would come to know that smile well over the years, but this was the first time he had seen it. It tightened around the same place her voice did. Their first conversation was burned permanently into his brain.

" Hello, hello and to what do I owe the honor of a visit from the great monster of our humble village?"

"I wasn't aware I was _visiting_ anyone."

"Ah well, as you are now what say you fuck off hmm?"

"For someone so pretty you have atrocious manners. Why should I go? You own this beach now?"

She gave a rude, unladylike snort in response. He found himself weirdly charmed. She continued, her voice having something like the crackle of approaching lightning in it.

"No I do not but, seeing as how I was here first, it would only seem _polite_ for you to move on elsewhere."

"I only succumb to my manners if the party reminding me of them has some of their own."

"Please."

He laughed.

"That was the most insincere 'please' I've ever heard."

She snarled. He had never actually heard a human snarl before and then charged him. He deflected her first flurry of attacks easily; ducking and twisting and forcing her flip over his own badly timed kick. He wasn't really trying, expecting her to quickly vent whatever fury was driving her and accede the field to her better. She didn't, choosing instead to increase the speed and intensity of her blows, strengthening them with precise chakra. He had to work harder to stop her this time and she even managed to land a smarting kick or two. His patience was fading fast. He decided to end the fight before she really pissed him off and forced him to do something stupid to her.

He called up his third nastiest water summon. Wrapping someone in a bubble of rapidly shrinking air surrounded by water for a few minutes convinced the vast majority of people to do what he wanted. She barreled into him before he was finished shaping his chakra. He staggered but managed to keep his feet under him, barely. He was knocked squarely on his ass by a blast of arctic air a split second later. Without thinking, he let loose the half formed water sphere. Out of control it slammed her into the sheltering wall of the tiny cove. Even through the muffling curtain of water he heard her shriek in pain, inhaling and swallowing water as she did. She thrashed violently for a moment and then, her mouth opening again, she went limp.

Swearing, he climbed to his feet and dispersed the jutsu. He limped over to her still body. He hoped she was only unconscious. He really did not want to have to explain why she was dead to the rest of the village. He prodded her angrily with a foot. She didn't move. He had never been more annoyed with another creature than he was at that moment. He was drawing his foot back to give her corpse a nasty kick for being such an idiot and forcing him to kill her when she coughed. She did it again, painfully, and tried to roll from her back into a fetal position; groaning and flopping quickly back down after a second's effort.

Her left shoulder was four inches lower than her right one he noticed. She cracked her eyes and watched him silently for a moment. He did the same; following the blood trails from her broken nose over her lips and down her chin with his eyes. She broke the strange silence first.

"Are you going to kill me?"

It was just a question. There was no fear in her voice. He shook his head and sighed.

"If I spent all of my time killing fools I'd have no time to sleep."

She did not respond but sat up with great effort, flinching visibly when she accidently tried to support herself with her dislocated arm. He frowned. He was mildly pleased she wasn't as breakable as he had initially feared but he didn't want to have to explain why she was banged up either.

"Come here."

He hadn't meant to sound that angry. She didn't move. He grimaced and tried again.

"You can't reset the shoulder on your own and I don't think you want me to tell the medics how stupid you were."

She glared but, as he had hoped, she was a pragmatic girl. She accepted his left hand with her right and let him haul her to her feet. She only stiffened slightly when he wrapped his arm around her upper back and slid the other along the front of her clavicle.

"Alright, count of three."

She nodded, her skin going grey.

"One…Tw—"

He snapped the shoulder back into place. She didn't yell, to her credit. The second the procedure was finished, however, she wrenched herself away and swore at him under her breath, fingering her wobbly nose. He smirked.

"I can help you with that too if you like."

"Thank you so much but I think you've done more than enough for today."

He shrugged to say that she wouldn't be in such bad shape if she'd just backed off like a sensible thing. She got the message and frowned sourly.

The sun was just above the western horizon. He needed to get back, wandering around in the dark in Kiri was semi-suicidal. He began to walk up the beach to the steep entrance of the cove when he realized she wasn't following him.

"Get your ass over here or I will carry you back."

She sounded abstracted.

"Whatever happened to mister manners?"

"He's been replaced by mister getting very annoyed."

He spun and took several menacing steps towards her before stopping. She was standing where he's left her staring into the middle distance. He was close enough to catch an odd refraction of the fading light off her eyes. He thought she might be crying for a split second and then she dropped her chin and stalked over to him. They made their way back to the village in silence, him walking a step behind her.

It had taken him five more years to actually ask her what exactly she had been doing so far away from Kiri. She had smiled enigmatically and responded with two words.

"Thinking, waiting."

_Please let me know what you thought. Thanks for reading. _


	2. Chapter 2

Here's the next chapter. I'm not sure how many installments of this I'm going to do, right now I think I have material for five or six but we'll see how that develops. Again, standard disclaimers as stated in chapter 1 apply. The language also gets a bit R-rated but it's not much.

Enjoy.

She hadn't been his first kiss; hadn't even been his first lay. Those distinctions belonged to, repectivly, a visiting dignitary's daughter and a kunoichi whose face he had long ago forgotten. The first had approched him on a dare. She had only wanted a peck on the lips. He had politely frozen for the approximately twelve fractions of seconds that had passed with her mouth, closed lipped and dry, on his own. The second had been part of the team with whom he had just completed an A-ranked mission, her first; his fifth. In celebration she had hauled him into an empty room in the barracks and proceeded to jump him.

It had been nice enough at the time. She was pretty and pliant and too inexperienced to notice his own lack of finesse. She had snuck out of bed in the middle of the night and refused to look at him the next day though. He had been more than a little pissed and had stalked out to demand an explanation in front of the rest of the team. She had shrunk away from him and, from the safety of the knot of their teammates, told him that everyone made mistakes. He had been two weeks away from his fourteenth birthday.

In dramatic, teenage fashion he swore off all women forever and devoted himself to training. Within six months he was a Jonin; four more and he was asked to join the Seven Swords. By fifteen Hoshigaki Kisame had achieved every goal he had ever set for himself.

He had mostly forgotten the eleven year old who had so impressed him three years before on the beach. In fact, when he met her again after his elevation he didn't even recognize her. A lapse she never ceased being amused by later. She claimed to have congratulated him in the street only to have him turn around, look at her like she was some unhinged stranger and then walk away with only a vague 'thank you'. She said the shop owner who had witnessed the entire thing teased her for years afterwards about her crush on the Demon Shark. He was still mildly horrified that he had done such a thing and more than a little mortified at her solution to the merchant's teasing. The day after they had finally confessed their attraction and then consummated it, she had marched back into the shop, shown the old man her love bites, and then proceeded to wreck the place.

Her claims aside, he next remembered coming across her was three years later on a mission to assassinate a would-be merchant-prince in the River Nation. The man had been causing the Water daimyo a number of headaches. As it turned out there was a renegade Mist ninja behind the entire incident. A hunter team had appeared just before he would have killed the cocky ass. Exhausted and extremely disgruntled at having his kill taken away he had, uncharacteristically, gotten into a shouting match with the leader of the team. Bizarrely, the man insisted that they take the missing-nin back to Kiri for further questioning. The entire scenario was so strange that Kisame totally forgot himself. They would probably have fought it out right there in the swampy mangroves but for a sudden chuckle from behind him.

He turned slowly; ready to rip the head off whichever arrogant Undertaker had decided to mock him. He could feel the naked horror of the rest of the team as they backed away from the idiot in question. The dead-man stood his ground as Kisame walked, slowly, towards him. The fool was on the tall side of average for a ninja but he was noticeably slight.

"Something funny?"

"I was just wondering where your manners had gone."

The voice was familiar but he couldn't place it. The hunter-nin obliged him by removing his mask despite the hissed protest of the commander. The face was unmistakable, nose a bit off center now, pale skin, sharp cheek bones and soft chin. He was still annoyed but also ruefully amused that the girl from the beach was, once again, calling him on his bad behavior. He wanted to say something cutting, just to show her that he could remember his manners and still manage a verbal riposte. His exhaustion and the sudden, blaring notion that women might not be all bad tripped him.

"You got taller."

"Happens sometimes. You're still blue I see."

"You're still uncivil I see."

Seeing her eyebrows rise sharply and her eyes narrow he decided to change tack. He didn't need to provoke her into being really nasty. He didn't need the extra aggravation of justifying why he'd hacked off one or more of her limbs in a fit of pique.

"What are you doing with these—"

He jerked his thumb contemptuously toward the sputtering commander. She smirked.

"I like to travel, see the world, meet new and interesting people and then kill them; every girl's dream."*

He smiled now. There was something refreshingly honest about her rudeness; she needled herself as much as she did anyone else rather than only trying to score points off of her slower fellows. He also had to acknowledge that she was clever. He doubted anyone else could have diffused the tense situation between himself and the commander without violence. He also doubted that most of the ninjas he knew would have been brave, or loyal, enough to risk turning his angry attention away from a colleague and in their direction. The annoyed cough of the commander made him turn and face the man over one shoulder.

"If you two are done flirting we need to get the prisoner back to Kiri sooner rather than later."

Kisame was a seasoned enough fighter to know when he needed to back down for the moment. He nodded, rolling his eyes as he did so. Glancing back down at the brunette he saw her wink before lowering her mask and vanishing in a puff of smoke.

They had missed the last ferry from the coast and would have to wait until morning for the next one. The hunters' commander swore a blue streak at Kisame. The man was so angry he actually vibrated, making his odd earrings undulate hysterically. The only thing that saved Kisame from laughing in the other man's face and making the situation totally untenable was the reappearance of the girl. Her superior rounded on her like a vicious hunting dog.

"Triple guard shift on the prisoner for you, since you find him so _interesting_."

She had just shrugged and gone off to her duty without so much as turning to him or raising her mask. He wrapped himself in his cloak and rested against a tree, vaguely disappointed that he wouldn't have a chance to speak to her again. He fell asleep easily.

He was woken long before dawn by a none-too-gentle kick to the ribs. He came awake instantly and grabbed his attacker's leg, yanking it out from under him and going for a kunai. He found himself pressing a blade into _Her _throat. A thin trickle of blood leaked from under the blade. She wasn't wearing her mask. Her eyes were huge but still calm. Her voice, however, was a touch huskier than usual. He lowered the kunai but kept her pinned.

"There are better ways of waking someone up."

"Dumb move, sorry. I just wanted some payback for last time."

He rolled his eyes. He had the grace to look embarrassed at her childishness.

"Next time be sure to get out of your target's reach. What do they teach our hunter squads?"

"Right. Anyway…"

She wriggled and stretched under him, trying to let him know it was time to get off. He found the feel of her long muscles sliding under him rather nice and ignored her hint. Deciding it was his turn to be rude; he even went so far as to press himself down a little harder. She stilled; her breathing taking on an irregular rhythm. There was an emotion almost like fear edging into her eyes now but it was fighting something else. He could feel the pulse in her wrists getting faster under his palm. He realized his own heart-rate was on the rise. She swallowed. He watched her throat muscles intently, the urge to close his mouth over them almost uncontrollable. She was trying to speak. Her voice was very, very soft.

"I thought you…might…ah…appreciate another try at…our prisoner."

"What?"

She smelled distracting; like sweat and iron and earthy, cool moss.

"Were he to…escape…you could—"

"Ah. I see."

He couldn't help himself; he licked at the blood pooled in the well between the tendons of her throat. She bit her lip, nostrils flaring. He was about to start suckling in earnest when she spoke again.

"Stop."

He felt something go very tight and brittle in him. For half a second the face of the other kunoichi swam up out of his subconscious and her voice echoed in the sound of his blood rushing past his ears. 'Everyone makes mistakes.' He rolled off _Her_ quickly. She sat up more slowly, rubbing her wrists and then touching her neck. He felt inexplicably angry at her unwillingness to let him continue but, knowing that such a response was completely inappropriate, he latched on to something he could actually object to in the situation.

"You want to set me up a pity kill?"

She looked at him like he had lost his mind.

"No. Ao's orders are all wrong. We do not haul traitors back for trial."

Ao must be the commander he had thought. He didn't think too highly of Ao and told her so. She frowned.

"Ao may be a bit…rough but he's an excellent leader. He's got an almost perfect record of mission completions and a remarkably low loss rate for his commands.

'And because he hasn't got any finesse he puts up with my lack of it too.' She hadn't said that but he had seen it on her face. Most of the hunter squads demanded perfect loyalty and deference. He ground his teeth but steered the conversation away from the personal and back to business.

"Who gave Ao the orders?"

"The Daimyo I think."

"That's odd."

"Indeed. And I can't disobey Ao any more than he can go against the Daimyo but the Monster of the Hidden Mist…Were he to kill the unfortunate prisoner in a failed escape attempt…"

His blood was still rushing loudly through his skull. His temper riding it, feeding off of it.

"So you're using me to do your job."

Her face had gone ugly with anger. She seemed about to speak but he cut her off, his frustration finally boiling over.

"And you want to act set-upon when I try to get my rocks off."

She slapped him. He had been expecting that. Actually he'd been expecting a bit more than a single, stinging slap. He had been hoping to provoke her into a fight. If he couldn't slake his desire for her body then he always had the ever-present blood lust to drown himself in. Instead she hit him once and then backed away several paces looking oddly hurt.

"Fuck you Kisame. I offer a solution to everyone's problems with this asshole and you have to go and…I don't know what kind of _women _you've been running around with but _I_ am not going to jeopardize a mission, even a flawed, idiotic one, by having a quickie on duty."

"You did a bad job of convincing me you didn't want it."

She didn't respond for a long minute. The cold brittle thing in his chest warmed a little. She stood and began fussing with her kimono. He felt the unknown thing inside him expand incrementally until there seemed to press outward against his ribs. Finally she looked at him, the expression on her face a confused mix of anger and disappointment and that unidentifiable something from earlier.

"I don't…on a mission. Now, am I going to let that fool knock me over so you can eviscerate him?"

He considered everything he had just learned for several minutes while she fidgeted. He examined the feeling under his sternum carefully, deciding he liked it, and liked the possibilities it offered. Mind made up, he gave her his best Carcharhinid grin.

"Okay."

Not the most exciting chapter but then again this is more of a character study than a plot driven piece.

*Yes I do love _Full Metal Jacket_ too much. Just be glad I haven't worked out how to get the rifleman's creed or the phrase "too beaucoup" in here.

Let me know what you thought. Thanks for reading.


	3. Chapter 3

I wanted to save this chapter till today in celebration of Canada Day! Yeah, totally that and not just that I was running behind schedule.

See disclaimers in chapter 1.

Enjoy

He remembered being rather happy on the trip back to Kiri, despite the general cloud that hung over the group. He didn't care that the idiot Daimyo was going to be hacked off because his desired plaything was in several pieces. Since _She_ had nominally let the prisoner escape and was in a mandated state of disgrace she was shunned by her fellows. He took advantage of her isolation to spend most of the voyage in her company. They didn't talk much and she was still holding strictly to her no-touching-on-the-mission policy but it was rather nice just to encroach on her personal space and let the anticipation build.

Unfortunately, though not totally unpredictably he had to admit to himself now, the Daimyo was four kinds of pissed off when he was informed of the outcome of the mission and looking for a vent for his anger. The weedy little prick turned purple with rage and nearly fell over himself as he paced the Mizukage's reception hall and bellowed. After much posturing and several threats toward Kisame and the team leader he was brought up short by a pretty red-headed girl. She appeared to be some sort of attendant to the Mizukage and wielded considerable power and a good brain under all that hair as she managed to diffuse the situation quickly and quietly. She suggested that everyone involved be given menial duties for a certain time as punishment.

The Daimyo, who must have realized that he would be unable to actually lock-up or demote any of the ninja without revealing what exactly he wanted with the missing-nin, capitulated to the idea. Kisame knew better than to try to force an answer as to why the deeply unusual request for a live capture had been issued at all. He took the abuse without comment and the punishment with a slight frown and found himself assigned to a border patrol under the severely grouchy Ao.

Since the foolish Daimyo couldn't take his anger out on the senior nins he rounded on the least defensible member of the group. _She_ was picked as the scapegoat of the entire incident and not even the clever red-head could totally dissuaded the Daimyo from demanding a demotion. After all, she had failed to guard the prisoner, an almost unforgivable offense amongst hunter-nin even if everyone ninja in the room understood that the failure had been intentional. A ninja could not simply act under their own reconnaissance like that and expect to get off scot-free, not in Kiri.

Though it seemed grossly unfair to him, she had after all merely been acting in the general best interest of the nation, politicians and rulers be damned, the Daimyo wanted his symbolic victory. She, being easier to spare than Ao and less unsettling looking than him was broken down to regular jonin status and packed off on a routine, long-term diplomatic mission to one of the neighboring island groups. The posting was to last for at least one year, more if she didn't behave herself and was to start immediately. She was given only enough time to pack a bag.

Unfairness aside, Kisame remembered being more pissed off that he would not get any opportunities to continue what they had started under that tree. He had been, despite outward appearances, a fairly normal eighteen year old male with all the usual hormonal issues. Refusing to give up without a fight he followed her and her pair of chunin escorts back to a pretty, well kept house in a quiet neighborhood.

A woman who looked like a slightly older, gentler version of _Her_ appeared at the door, blanching in horror at the cadre of ninja escorts. Her strong, plump hands fitfully twisted the pale green cloth she had been holding as she invited everyone in with a low bow. They all crammed into the small front room and waited uncomfortably. She and the other woman quickly disappeared into the back of the house and began to bicker quietly. Kisame craned his neck to look down the short hall, catching momentary glimpses of _Her_ tossing various items of clothing into a bag while the woman, she could not be her mother she looked no more than ten or eleven years older, fretted.

"What have you done now? Why can't you just keep your head down and do as you're told? I love you, you know that. What will I do if you…? I couldn't bear it. Do you like making me frantic? I promised mom and dad I would take care of you, Kenji and me. Are we doing a bad job, is that why you get into so much trouble?"

The other woman must be _Her_ sister then, he vaguely rermembered Zabuza mentionining that her parents were dead on some mission years back. The woman and her husband, Kenji apparently, must have taken her in.

She stopped her sister, pulling the older woman into a fierce hug. He couldn't make out everything she said in an urgent, soft voice.

"orry…love you and Ken…just going away…won't even miss me."

Then she kissed her sister's soft, tear streaked cheek and headed for the door. The chunins looked uncomfortable with the obvious display of affection and nearly stumbled over each other trying to get out the door. Kisame, however, remained, examining both herand her sister. The older one obviously wasn't a ninja. Her physique was soft and round and generous but he saw a similar stubbornness in her eyes as she glared at him defiantly. She wiped at her eyes and set her mouth, refusing to cry in front of a stranger. _She_ glared at him too, telling him with her eyes that his intrusion into a private moment was less than welcome. He smirked arrogantly and leaned against a wall, letting her know that he wasn't going anywhere. Angrily she turned her back on him and hugged her sister tightly.

"Tell Kenji I'm sorry for the trouble. I'll send you a letter when I get there and you'll still get half my pay."

Disentangling herself after several minutes she turned back to him and motioned toward the door. Moving slowly he let her herd him outside. The drizzle of the morning was turning into a warm summer rain. The chunins were huddled a short distance away under a neighbor's overhanging roof, waiting. She stood for a moment in the open doorway and then pulled on a hood and began to walk towards the pair. Seeing his opening he hooked an arm around her waist and twisted, redirecting her forward momentum into a sort of spin into his chest. Using hermomentary confusion to his advantage he hauled her up the six inches he needed to clamp his mouth over hers.

She didn't struggle as much as he thought she would, nor did she go all pliant the way women always did in novels. She responded almost immediately, thrusting her chin forward and opening her lips against his. He followed suit, pressing hard into her. Their tongues touched and then wrapped around each other, tangling in a confused sort of passion. His teeth nicked first his tongue and then hers causing a bright red flash of pain and then a warm, rich maroon lust as her blood trickled over his soft palate. He opened his jaw wider, wanting more contact, deeper. She responded. Her smaller, rounder teeth grated on his; a loud sound like stones striking each other reverberated through his head. He disengaged and tried to shake his ears free of it, not wanting to be distracted. But she had slid out of his grip like sand through a fist.

_She_ was about a foot away from him, at the edge of the street, looking up with narrowed, considering eyes and puffy bright lips. After a moment her eyes turned up at the corners and a wry smile spread over the left half of her face. Her voice had taken on that raspy character he was coming to love.

"I'll see you when I see you."

And then she was gone, walking quickly up the street toward the Administrative center, forcing the shocked chunins to scamper after her like a pair of startled rats. He looked defiantly at the sister still standing at her door. Her frown was worried but not shocked. He leered at her but she only rolled her eyes and shook her head. He thought he saw a slightly indulgent smile begin to crack her façade as she closed the door though.

Another chapter out, hurray! I will try to be more consistent with the updates but this week hit me like a ton of bricks. As always, let me know what you though and thanks for reading.


	4. Chapter 4

Since the next couple of chapters are concerned mainly with domestic "bliss" and have a _slight_ dearth of action I've decided to post two of them this week. That and I'm buried at work and trying to finish/start a couple of other pieces so I might not have a lot of time next week for this story.

Que sera.

N.B.: The letter at the end of the chapter may seem a bit odd and/or flowery and/or old fashioned but I am attempting (emphasis on attempting) to recreate the general epistolary conventions followed in most formal Japanese letters. If you've ever had a pen-friend in Japan or had a friendly correspondence with someone from Japan you may know what I'm getting at here. It's a little hard to put in English syntax.

Disclaimers as in chapter 1

Enjoy!

The year passed slowly. The first two months were spent on the seemingly interminable border patrol in the bucolic eastern regions. The picturesque fishing hamlets set on high sea-bluffs had known no violence save for that of winter storms for thirty years. They smiled and bowed generally made Kisame want to bang his head against a rock, additionally, having to do every item of grunt work Ao could dream up nearly drove him mad. Samehada grew so bored and complacent that he could have sworn the damn thing was asleep half the time. He remembered thinking he could hear the sword snoring softly on more than one occasion.

Worse, by the time they got back peace had broken out in the last of the renegade northern villages. A meeting of the Seven Swords was convened. Three of them, including himself and the newly initiated Zabuza wanted to head to the mainland. There were rumors of tensions between some of the smaller nations; perhaps they could sell their skills there. The other four vetoed the idea, saying that it was dishonorable for a group from an established village in one of the five Great Shinobi countries to go on bended knee to foreigners. Let those nations come to them if they wanted mercenaries said the rest of the Seven Swords. Zabuza had demanded to know what honor there was in sitting around going soft and was roundly upbraided for his insolence. Kisame tacitly agreed but let his younger counterpart take the heat.

He volunteered for another patrol, to the north and the northern islands this time in hopes that there might still be a few pockets of resistance. Zabuza went with him. They were not disappointed, though the renegades were depressingly ill equipped and generally in very poor condition. It almost made him feel bad as he surveyed the carnage their group wrought, _almost_. With nothing better to do he took the opportunity provided to discreetly grill Momochi about his cousin.

The boy didn't know much and most of what he did remember only served to confirm what Kisame had already gleaned.

Her parents had been killed when she was small. She had been taken in by her older sister, who apparently made fantastic dumplings, and her husband. She was considered the family disappointment, strong but wayward. She constantly got into trouble or behaved strangely. Allegedly she had been devastated by having to kill her friend in the graduation exam, had cried even, and still left offerings at the temple for the other girl's spirit. Zabuza was, predictably, baffled and more than a little contemptuous by such softness.

It was widely believed by the cousins that she had been posted to the hunter-nin squads as a favor to a respected aunt. The aunt saw the work as a way of both toughening the girl up and getting her out of the village before anyone else noticed her appalling sentimentality. Though even Zabuza had to admit, after some thought, that she had a few, fairly high powered weather and tracking jutsus that he wouldn't mind learning. Not that he would ever actually ask her. He made a point of staying away from her, lest the aura of general disappointment and disapproval that had attached itself to her stain him. One of these days, Kisame had thought, Mr. Overachieving Momochi was going to _really _snap. He rather hoped he would be there to see it.

The patrol whittled off three more months but still felt an oddly desolate sensation creeping up his spine at the thought of all the empty time before him.

He was horny enough to consider taking up with some other shinobi just to sand the edge off. When his initial efforts in that direction proved disappointing he took to violence and began volunteering for every protection mission on offer, the more hazardous the better. Unfortunately that was only a temporary fix, word spread fast that the worryingly carnivorous looking bodyguard from Kiri had an even more worrisome habit of dismembering potential threats first and questioning them later, regardless of what his employer might be doing, including throwing a fancy dinner party. That had been awkward; Kisame had to admit, especially when the dead man turned out to be a delivery boy bringing the lady of the house an illicit correspondence from her lover. Mostly he trained. And then, with two months to go before he could start reasonably harassing the Mizukage about recalling _Her _a letter came.

A courier handed it to him with trembling hands one afternoon on the training grounds. Seeing that it came on paper marked with Kiri's diplomatic seal; posted from the Sea Country he didn't even bother to fully re-wrap Samehada or bow to the courier before he stalked off to a sheltered stand of trees to read it alone.

_Kisame,_

_The weather is finally growing cool here. Sometimes I see a mist rising from the waters of the bay and feel the time when I can return home growing closer. I hope you are well. We have had some news about you reach us even in the land of Water and I could not help but worry that you were bored. In the absence of further accounts I assume you have found something pleasant to occupy your time. I understand your feelings of boredom too well these days I am afraid. I am in fine health and have been spending a great deal of time out of doors. You will hardly know me, I am so brown. Otherwise I have been behaving myself as I was instructed. One year in this place is more than enough. _

_The daimyo of this country is even more foolish than ours, something I admit I had not thought possible until I saw it with my own eyes. He has the most revoltingly romantic streak and has come to see my humble person as some sort of tragic figure. He is always after the leader of our embassy and her staff in hopes that they will reveal some spoiled love affair back in Kiri or a doomed pact of friendship and betrayal. Our ambassador has wondered more than once in my presence if the man actually performs any political or administrative duties or simply records ballads. I am inclined to believe that he devotes himself exclusively to his troubadour pursuits, though I have held my tongue on the matter thus far. The lion's share of the work is done by his staff and his wife who is an estimable woman in every way. I think she would have made a formidable kuniochi had she been born in our village. The rest of the embassy ignores me quite neatly and I am assigned useless bodyguard duties to the daimyo, who is as safe as the clouds in the sky since everyone knows how useless he is. _

_I am sorry to have taken so long to write you. Truthfully I was first angry and then did not know what to write. I still don't but I have hardly any time to continue to hold off. I would regret not writing you at all far more than being confused. I am eager to see my sister and Kenji and my nephew but I look forward to seeing you as well. You are laughing at me I am certain but I cannot hear you and do not care. I will hold off on taking missions until I have seen you Kisame and we have discussed and resolved whatever is between us. I hope you will too._

_Give my regards to your mother and congratulate Zabuza on his promotion to the Seven Swords for me. Please look after yourself and try not to pick fights with Ao; he is less foolish than he sometimes appears. _

_With affection,_

He read the letter three times and then folded it carefully, tucking it into a pocket of his vest. He _had been_ laughing at her; she was right, but not entirely for the reasons she thought. He had no intention of _discussing_ whatever it was between them, as she had so carefully put it, nor was he about to try and _resolve _it. He hoped that a resolution was a very long way off. Kisame remembered feeling warm despite the cold, clinging fog as he walked back to the village; a slightly evil smile on his face.

Next chapter up soon, probably tomorrow; tonight if I put forth some effort.

Let me know what you thought!


	5. Chapter 5

Another chapter, as promised. More domestic "bliss" and some vaguely adult references.

Disclaimer as in ch.1

Enjoy!

He can't recall if _She_ moved into his tiny, cramped apartment immediately upon her return or some time later. It had been a foregone conclusion anyway; the entire village knew about their kiss in the rain before she had even reached the Sea Country. They had assumed to rest for themselves. Even her sister and her slightly twitchy husband had accepted the fact that their charge had taken up with one of the most dangerous ninjas ever to be produced by their village weeks before _She _got back. The rest of her family didn't even blink, but then again, any group that produces and nurtures a Zabuza probably had a severely skewed sense of danger anyway.

As it was those were halcyon days and passed in the timeless blur that such periods of life usually do. She could not cook, which was fine since he was a picky eater anyway. They were both neat freaks, unless they were working and then all bets were off. She was a morning person, he was decidedly not but she found ways to make it up to him. He tries not to let his mind linger too long on those mornings; they cause uncomfortable dilemmas when lodged in a narrow space.

Better yet another, war broke out in the between the River and Tea countries shortly after they had begun living together. Since neither nation had any shinobi of their own the vast majority of the fighting was done by hired swords, and nobody had better swords-for-hire than Kiri.

They were often apart as she had been quickly folded into one of the many new reconnaissance squads and he was immediately requested to lead a combat group. Even when they happened across one another she still held strictly to her policy of no-quickies-on-missions. He thinks he hardly cared. He got to spend two or three weeks hacking various malcontents to fish food and then come back to a nice warm woman who didn't mind his blue skin or gills and even enjoyed his macabre humor. Life had been ideal.

He's sure that it hadn't actually been that easy. There must have been weeks, and maybe even months, where they missed each other entirely; one coming home only hours after the other had gone, having nothing but their fading scent in the sheets to fall asleep with. There must have been fights or maybe a pall of general disapproval and disgust from some of the other ninjas and villagers but he doesn't remember.

His brain has erased all the awkward or unpleasant parts. It has glossed over the discomfort of momentary separations. Kisame has realized that his memories even lack linear time. Oh the rational part of his mind tells him that they had three years of the war between River and Tea and then another two of a quiet time. He knows it is during those two lazy years of peace that he began to chafe against the strictures of the village hierarchy but did little about it because was too content. His brain tells him all of this and yet he can't sort the vignettes of his life with _Her_ into a coherent timeline.

His life with her exists outside the time and space of the rest of his universe. Their relationship might have happened in another dimension, in another life. There is never anything as mundane as the passage of days or months in his memories. He thinks this may be because they had so little _time_ in the end. In fact he can only conjure up two fully formed recollections of what he has come to think of as their happy period.

He remembers how she fell into Samehada by accident one night. Actually he can't recall exactly _how_ she fell, merely that she did. It had rent a long scrape down her left leg. She had leapt away and then fallen over again when her injured leg buckled. Enraged, she had attempted to level a blast of her wind at the sword but it had absorbed too much of her chakra. Her efforts produced no more than a pleasant breeze that fluttered playfully through the shredded wrappings.

He had laughed so hard he hadn't been able to stand. They probably had been drunk in retrospect since he was raised better than to laugh at a companion's pain. She had tackled him angrily, trying to regain some of her dignity by pounding his face in. He had restrained her hands easily, still chuckling. She had hissed and spit like a kettle left too long over a flame but they had eventually made love there on the floor. She had finally gotten her revenge by teasing him to the point of begging.

He remembered helping her babysit her nephew, Shigeru, for an afternoon. This must have been late in the little war, or maybe just after it ended. They were both around and idle and the kid was about three or four. Kisame had thought he was cute, all fat little limbs and wild black hair like his father's. He remembered musing that the kid might make a halfway decent ninja one day, despite his parentage, since he never quit climbing all over everything and poking around.

He had always liked kids for some bizarre reason not even he really understood and was happy to watch the tyke. He had loved the weirded out look _She_ gave him when he cheerfully volunteered before her sister had even finished making the request. The sister had smiled at him and thanked him very graciously; he recalled thinking to himself that he had always known she was okay. Once she had satisfied herself that he was not going to eat or dismember her or her family for fun she had never so much as batted an eye either at his strange appearance or fearsome reputation.

He let Shigeru get away with way too much that day, giving him all sorts of garbage to eat and letting him play with some of the myriad sharp, shiny things they had laying around the flat. _She _had glared at him with half-hearted disapproval when she found them sitting on the couch with a small pile of kunai and shuriken between them. They had worn _Her_ down without any effort and soon she was gently tossing blunted missiles at her nephew. He didn't catch a single one and only 'dodged' by accident; giggling uncontrollably and appearing to have the time of his short life. He would probably have gotten hurt had her aim not been so good; she managed to just miss him every time. Her sister had looked a little horrified when Shigeru told her what they had done that day but, seeing as he wasn't hurt, she let it slide.

They had stood watching Kenji carry the unconscious kid away. He had fallen asleep seemingly the second his dad had picked him up. Kisame had wrapped an arm around _Her_ shoulders as he felt the oddest sensation of drifting up and out of his own body. He had felt like he could look down on the scene as though he were doing a recon job. The happy, normal family strolled home through the warm air; mother, father, son and another on the way while a pair of poseur freaks looked on. They were both too tall; she was as tall as most men and he's even bigger. They were too mismatched; he's too strange looking, she was plain. He's a bloodthirsty killer even by his villages' standards and she was trained to track down and kill people with no thought or mercy at a word.

He knows, knew, that the similar things could be said of every other ninja in every other ninja village but somehow, in that moment, everything is personal. He doesn't know if he felt the sense of crushing dread then or if it's his hindsight intruding on his memory but there's a sort of disgust rolling black and green in his belly at himself and at _Her. _They're pretending to be just like everyone else, it's pathetic and ridiculous. They have no idea they're doomed.

Other than those two flashes of memory it's all fragmentary. The way the water runs over her skin in the shower, or how she always gives away her next parry by cutting in the direction she wants to go with her eyes. He can still feel the weight of her body as she lays across his chest and the sticky-slick drag of their drying sweat as they settle into a comfortable position. He's not sure he can remember the way she smelled, it always seemed to change, but there are certain scents the recall her. Anything metal or damp usually triggers something, a moment of her training, a glimpse of her in full hunter-nin guard on a mission. She used a common soap in Kiri that's almost unknown here on the mainland so whenever he comes across a woman smelling like salt and that little white cone-flower he can bring up vivid images of her hair; between his fingers, across his belly, fanning out in the water, spinning behind her as she moved and a dozen more.

He hates the fact that he can't assemble his recollections of her, of them, abstractly. He suspects that the lack of clarity is a good thing. Itachi remembered _everything_ in perfect detail and look where it got him. Sometimes he's almost relieved that the good parts, the parts that would become unbearably, maddeningly bitter in the face of the cold, hard reality he's living are so hazy. Better to remember the bad parts, the end; the things that fuel his spite and rage and force him to keep going. Because Kisame suspects that if he dwells too much on what he lost, really dredges everything up, he might crack and let himself get caught or killed. So he doesn't try to remember too much of his fleeting happy period and turns his mind to the permanent bad one.

Needless to say the next chapter or two (I haven't decided how much longer I want to drag this out) is/are going to be darker. Hopefully I'll get it/those done soon.

As always, let me know what you thought.


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